The Island Queen Public House

TQ3183SE NOEL ROAD 635-1/65/10108 Islington 24-MAY-00 (North side) 87 The Island Queen Public House

GV II

Public House with accommodation over. 1851, interior altered c.1889 and 1897. Stock brick facade with rendered sill band to front, cornice to front and right-hand side and rendered ground-floor side wall. Roof not seen. Rectangular plan with entrance to right-hand side. Dark timber and glass frontage to public house, with curved glass flanks, central door (now blocked) and side door, with narrow mullions between treated as columns, and with small toplights under frieze, which has dentilled cornice. Heavy panels to timber dado. The composition is framed by pilasters with Corinthian capitals, and by set-back door with half glazing to side. The upper floors make a strong composition, three windows wide, the first floor with margin light glazing and central pediment; all windows have flat projecting lintels supported on console brackets. Sashes to second floor, again with projecting lintels supported on console brackets. The rear windows have sashes under gauged brick heads, those to first floor with margin lights. Projecting rear ablution block there by 1897 (not shown on plan of 1873).

The pub interior of the late nineteenth century survives well. Entered now from the right-hand side, there is an original central island bar, with small bar back and optic stand, whose cradle is later. Cast-iron columns with Corinthian capitals and lincrusta ceiling. A good collection of c.1900 mirrors in the back bar, which retains a late nineteenth-century fireplace with round-arched grate . At the entrance some partitioning survives, with some renewed glass. A fragment of the frieze moulding survives behind inserted food counter, and dado panelling survives around the principal bar space. To rear a pool room has early twentieth-century panelling. To side, stairs with late nineteenth-century dado panelling lead to upper floors, which have not been inspected. Below, a series of cellars, originally also a kitchen and pot room, extend under the roadway.

Included as a good surviving example of a mid-nineteenth century public house, which makes a handsome contribution to a street that includes many listed terraces, with a good late nineteenth-century front and central bar, and other features of interest now becoming extremely rare.

Source Islington Drainage Plans